December 10, 2009

Precision Motors is an excellent VW mechanic in Portland, Oregon

When I bought my VW, I asked two friends if they had a mechanic that they would recommend, and both enthusiastically (and independently) recommended Darrell at Precision Motors on Grand, just north of Burnside.

Since then I've had occasion to have a VW Jetta inspected pre-purchase, and been in four times for service, and every experience has been very good.

They are extremely knowledgeable about VWs there. From my vague descriptions over the phone, Darrell is always spot-on at predicting what the problem is. Their estimates are usually right on. They fix the problem right the first time, and they get it done pretty darn quick. They can almost always take my car the very next day if I call for an appointment.

I appreciate that I can drop off my car early and pick it up late. Unlike some other mechanics, I have no problem getting a hold of Darrell or getting return calls from him. 

All in all, although having to fix something on my car is never welcome, the experience I have with Precision Motors is great.

Posted by will hertling at 9:19 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Best Brewed Coffee in Portland

I drank espresso drinks for about fifteen years. And while the quality of an espresso drink can vary widely from one coffee shop to the next. and indeed from one barrista to the next, there are a large number of factors that go into that quality variation aside from just the coffee: the calibration of the espresso machine, the quantity and quality of other ingredients that go into the drink, the ratio of ingredients, and the actual process of making the drink. The coffee bean variables include the type and quality of the bean, and the roasting process.

By comparison, brewed coffee has far fewer variables: it's just the bean, the roast, the grind, and the brew. And because there are less other ingredients to obscure the coffee, the quality of the finished drink is that much more dependent on the coffee.

So after fifteen years of espresso drinks, I switched to brewed coffee. And I found all my old haunts: Jim and Patty's on Fremont (the founders of Coffee People), Portland staple Stumptown (on Hawthorne), and the tiny Ristretto on NE 42th, all somewhat lacking. They make good, but not great coffee.

By comparison to all of those very worthy competitors, Extracto on NE Killingsworth and 30th makes mind-blowing awesome coffee. In fact, the one single downside of going to Extracto is that you may never be able to drink coffee anywhere else again. It's really, really good. Give it a try.

Posted by will hertling at 9:02 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 24, 2009

The Environmental Case for Making a Wishlist

Some folks have a love-hate relationship with gifts. They might love the sentiment of a gift, but they hate bringing "stuff" into their lives. It can happen for various reasons: an environmentalist might be concerned with the earth impact of that stuff, someone who is trying to reach material simplicity might be philosophically and emotionally opposed, and sometimes a parent just wants to avoid a glut of plastic toys at the holidays.

People deal with it in various ways: just accept the gifts, ask for no gifts, ask for donations to charity, or entirely avoid the occasion (by not having a birthday party, for example). Some of these work better than others. For example, every time I've been invited to a child's birthday party that said "no gifts" on the invitation, at least a few gifts show up. Then the people who brought the gifts may feel bad that they didn't realize not to bring gifts, the people who didn't bring gifts may be kicking themselves saying "I knew I should have brought a gift anyway", and so on.

In the ideal case, a gift is meaningful, useful, and appreciated by the recipient, and then both the giver and receiver feel good about the gift.

I think that being really explicit about what gifts would be meaningful, useful, and appreciated is alternative way to approach gift giving. After all, even the most fanatical stuff avoider has something they like: maybe a particular type of wine, or maybe tickets to a show. A few years ago, I realized my life was so busy, I had no time for gifts that took time (like a new game or activity), but if a gift fit into an activity I was already doing and made it better, then I greatly appreciated it. That year I asked for quality cookware to replace some of the older pots I had that weren't so great. Another year I had no time to think about gifts before the holiday, but I knew that I would want to go clothes shopping later in the year, so I asked for REI gift certificates.

The point is, most people can think of things that would be meaningful, useful, and appreciated. So instead of hiding under a rock at Christmas, just tell people what you would really like.

One way you can make and communicate a wishlist is by using a tool like Magic Wishlist, which is a wishlist application for Facebook. Then your friends and family on Facebook can easily find your wishlists. Wishlists can include items from any online store, and you can link to charities if you want to solicit donations instead of gifts. (Wishlists also include a handy url you can share with family who might not be on Facebook, or that you can include in an e-invitation to a birthday party.)





Posted by will hertling at 12:25 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 8, 2009

Aunt Peach's Honey Cookies Recipe (Struffoli, ribbons, not balls.)

Aunt Peach's Honey Cookies Recipe

This is the classic italian honey cookie recipe from my Aunt Peach. This is the recipe for just the cookies. The important thing to note is that this is the ribbon version of the recipe, not the balls. The ribbon cookies are far superior.

Ingredients:
2 lbs flour
8 teaspoons baking powder
1 dozen medium eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 lb melted butter

Method:
Beat eggs with melted butter, salt, and vanilla.
Gradually add baking powder until dissolved.
Add flour a little at a time, until dough forms a ball.
Repeat 3 times:
Cover dough, and wait about 15 minutes.
Knead for 10 minutes.
Use pasta machine to roll out. Start with the widest notch, and keep going until right before the last notch.
Cut with wheel into strips and fry.

(I think: store cookies in paper bags overnight. Do honey the next day.)

After this, the honey mixture is poured over the cookies. The honey mixture is documented elsewhere, but I'll try to find it and add it in here.

Then sprinkle with colored hard sprinkles.

Posted by will hertling at 10:14 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 8, 2009

Ron Tonkin's Service Department Gets It Right

I'm sitting here in Ron Tonkin's Service Department on SE 122nd Avenue, here in Portland, Oregon. I'm waiting for my car to be serviced. Here is what I find amazing about this experience:
  • There's a spacious, well lit, and well appointed waiting area.
  • There's free coffee, and free wifi.
  • There's comfy cushion seats and a TV for that crowd, and ergonomic office chairs and desks for the digital crowd.
  • The space is large enough that if anyone needed to make a cell phone call, they could do so without disturbing anyone else.
  • Even for a relatively significant service, my car was promised back in far less time than I'm accustomed to it taking anywhere else.
All in all, a great place to take your car for service. I'll be back on many more occasions.

Good job, Ron Tonkin!

Posted by will hertling at 9:46 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 25, 2009

Permit to keep chickens in Portland, Oregon

Looking for the permit to keep more than three chickens in Portland, Oregon? It's not easy to find. The permit is located at the Multnomah County Health website. You can keep up to eight chickens if you file the permit and pay the $31 fee, and of course, comply with the requirements. 

Posted by will hertling at 7:27 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 13, 2009

What Makes Us Happy: 7 Primary Factors

Via The Atlantic: 

What allows people to work, and love, as they grow old? By the time the Grant Study men had entered retirement, Vaillant, who had then been following them for a quarter century, had identified seven major factors that predict healthy aging, both physically and psychologically.

Employing mature adaptations was one. The others were education, stable marriage, not smoking, not abusing alcohol, some exercise, and healthy weight. Of the 106 Harvard men who had five or six of these factors in their favor at age 50, half ended up at 80 as what Vaillant called "happy-well" and only 7.5 percent as "sad-sick." Meanwhile, of the men who had three or fewer of the health factors at age 50, none ended up "happy-well" at 80. Even if they had been in adequate physical shape at 50, the men who had three or fewer protective factors were three times as likely to be dead at 80 as those with four or more factors.

Posted by will hertling at 10:02 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 1, 2009

Qualcom April Fool's Joke

This one is pretty funny and novel.

Posted by will hertling at 3:53 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

March 26, 2009

Boy Rescued by Spiderman

I found this cool story today:

Authorities were running out of ideas on how to rescue the boy when Firefighter Sonchai Yoosabai overhead the boy's mother mention his love of superheroes. So, naturally, he raced back to the fire station and changed into his Spider-Man costume.Thai Boy With Autism Rescued by Spider-Man, Mar 2009

You should read the whole article.

Posted by will hertling at 2:19 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

March 9, 2009

Nutritional Analysis

Cool nutritional analysis tool (via Rebecca's Pocket). Just cut and paste the ingredients list from any recipe you have, and it will automatically calculate the nutritional analysis. Here's an example for my chocolate chip cookie recipe:
chocolate-chip-cookie-recipe-analysis.jpg

Posted by will hertling at 9:36 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 27, 2009

Goldratt on the recession and layoffs

Dr. Goldratt, author of The Goal, and creator of Theory of Constraints, has a great video entitled A Matter of Choice that goes into the current economic situation. Highly, highly recommended.

Posted by will hertling at 12:40 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 13, 2009

The Secret Fear Behind Friday the 13th

The secret fear behind Friday the 13th.

Posted by will hertling at 8:38 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 2, 2008

Raising the price of quality

Last week my friend Nathan and I visited a toy shop on Alberta Ave in Northeast Portland on our way to breakfast. "Come in here, you've got to check out these really cool toys", I told him. He agreed that they had some pretty cool stuff, but we were both shocked by the cost of the toys.

We discussed it further over breakfast. Since I personally believe in buying local, buying sustainable, and buying natural, the prices were not as much of a shock to me, so I found myself trying to make the case for why we were justified in paying those prices. But the real question we kept returning to was why the prices were so high compared to a mass market toy.

We identified these probable factors:
  • The toys are higher quality than mass market toys, so all other things being equal, they would cost more.
  • The toys are produced in smaller quantities compared to mass market toys, so the mass market toys gain from manufacturing efficiency enjoyed at higher volume.
  • The toys are distributed through small, local retailers rather than mass market retailers, so the retailer market is probably higher.
It seemed that these factors combine in a way that magnify each other. If they cost 20% more because of quality, 50% more because of being produced in low volume, and 50% more because they are distributed by a small, local retailer, the combined effects is 1.2 * 1.5 * 1.5 = 2.7 times the cost of a mass market toys.

This is a state of affairs that I've lamented for some time. As major manufacturers focus on driving cost out of products, they are willing to accept varying levels of decrease product quality. In some cases they intentionally go for a low price, low quality product to compete on the low end. In other cases, they are merely looking for incremental cost reductions, and accept minor quality decreases.

But what happens when all major manufacturers focus on cost reducing, as they have in recent years? The result is that products which were available from a mass market manufacturer at a given quality level and given price are no longer available. You can find a less expensive product at lower quality, or a much more expensive product at the same quality level. In effect, quality costs more.

Let's walk through an example.

Imagine a mass market manufacturer builds a toy truck that costs $15. They cost reduce the product, and now sell a lower quality toy truck that costs $10. Now imagine as a shopper that I'd like to buy a toy truck of good quality. I look for the $15 truck at a mass market retailer, and it doesn't exist. There is a $10 truck, but it's lower quality than I would like. There is no $15 truck available for me to buy at that retailer.

If I'm really motivated, I'd leave that retailer and go seek a local retailer that is reputed to carry higher quality toys. The local retailer does carry a truck at the quality level I'm looking for. And it might have sold for $15 if it was manufactured by a mass market manufacturer and sold by a mass market retailer. But it's not. It's made by a boutique manufacturer, and sold by a local retailer. Now the $15 truck costs about $33 ($15 * 1.5 * 1.5).

Basically, the desired level of quality is no longer available at the price it was previously available at, and it now costs more to get that same level of quality. For most shoppers, they're going to walk out the door with the cheaper $10 truck, and just live with the lower quality level. For a few shoppers, they're going to get stuck paying more. 

The net effect is that the relentless drive towards mass market cost reduction is raising the price of quality to the end purchaser. 

Posted by will hertling at 9:25 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 30, 2008

Reading The Public Domain

I'm currently reading The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind by Jesse Dylan. What's both cool and appropriate is that the book is available for free by PDF download or online via web pages (with annotation!)

The preface is interesting, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the book.

Posted by will hertling at 10:27 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 25, 2008

Concerns about Facebook's impact on the public commons

I find myself wondering about Facebook's impact on the public commons. I like using Facebook very much, but it has sort of a gated community mentality about it. On the plus side, everything is so protected with privacy that we have a feeling of security, and we may share things via Facebook that we wouldn't share in public. 

But conversely, it's so easy to share in Facebook that we may find the act of microblogging in Facebook scratches whatever itch we have for sharing. As a result, we may then neglect to share in a more intentional, reflective, and broad way via traditional blogs.

Instead of a well thought out essay shared publicly where our thoughts can become fodder for discussion within the blogosphere, we end up with with 20 words shared within our tiny circle of friends and quickly lost as it rolls off everyone's News feed.

What do you think? Is blogging's greatest danger actually the rise of Facebook and related social networking microblogging?

Posted by will hertling at 10:18 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

About Will

I've been hosting and cocreating online collaboration systems and communities since 1987. I'm interested in The Long Tail, Wikinomics, Support 2.0, sustainability, and sustainable business. I'm particularly interested in the ways that technology influences society at large and organizational cultures, and in particular, how it can create the systems conditions that foster sustainable business practices and participative management. As a father of three young children, my posts are written at odd hours. I live in the sustainability mecca of Portland, Oregon. Looking for my professional blog?

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